On 4 June 2002, the national football team of the People’s Republic of China took to the field for its first ever match in the FIFA World Cup. For the few thousand Chinese fans in the stadium, and the 500 million or so watching at home, the fact the team had made it there at all was considered the greatest accomplishment in China’s football history. ‘The Great Wall’ would go one step further if they were able to score a goal during the tournament.

They didn’t. Playing against Costa Rica, Brazil (the eventual tournament winners) and Turkey, China finished bottom of their group and conceded nine goals. They haven’t been back to a World Cup since. Failing to qualify in 2006, 2010 and 2014, the team could still make it to Russia in 2018 - but even if they don’t, there’s still plenty of time for China to realize its ambition of winning a World Cup by 2050.

China is now getting in on the act, with Chinese companies spending billions of dollars acquiring clubs across Europe, as well as investing in football in their own country. So what can we learn from China’s interest in the beautiful game? And what does all this tell us about globalization and the state of the world today?

Centres of power are shifting

Since World War II, the world order has been largely shaped by liberal, Western influences. This power structure emerged in the aftermath of the 1939-45 conflict and produced institutions like the World Bank, European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the International Monetary Fund. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it appeared that the ideals promoted by the Western powers had won out.

In football as in politics, there are centres of power. Traditionally, these have been found in Latin America and Europe: of the 20 World Cups to date, nine have been won by Latin American countries and 11 by European nations. And just three countries - Brazil, Italy and Germany - have won 65% of the titles. In general, Latin America has tended to produce the most skilful individual players, while Europe has taken credit for developing styles and philosophies within the game. A core of European countries was able to do so quite synchronously because of their common borders and networked economies: as in any globalized economy, innovation was able to spread quickly, and these countries became the most influential power bases for world football.

But as the traditional wielders of power face challenges, space is opening up for other countries to fill leadership gaps. Enter, China. With nationalism on the rise, many Western nations are turning inward, pursuing national interests at the expense of international roles. Xi cautioned against this in Davos in 2017, calling for more trade and cooperation. But just this month, US President Donald Trump announced that he would pull out his country from the Paris Climate Accord - with China set to take on a bigger governance role as a result.

Interestingly, Kuper also attributes improvements in US soccer to globalization: “Soccer’s advance in the US is an index of how daily life is globalising there. The two groups who are keenest on the game – immigrants and the coastal elites – are precisely the most globalised Americans … The estimated number of Hispanics living in the country today is 43 million – up threefold since 1980, and most of them from football-loving Mexico – and approximately equals Spain’s population. The US has more young soccer players than any other country. No wonder the national team is improving fast”.

In recent months, Chinese clubs have brought in foreign players to augment their squads, and pumped millions into European clubs with the aim of picking up some of their coaching and marketing knowledge. In other words, China is riding the wave of globalization to advance its economy and create jobs. It is anticipating that globalizing its football market will be just as beneficial.

Globalization creates winners and losers, and China will need to be cautious

After the shock elections of 2016, globalization came under intense scrutiny. While the world was undoubtedly better off overall, some communities did not experience the same gains in income and living standards as others. Indeed, a certain profile seems to have lost out entirely: research shows that low-skilled workers in the US became worse off as manufacturing activity moved to China.

As Diane Coyle explains, the dual forces of automation and globalization created imbalances in the speed at which globalization has benefitted people’s lives. Branko Milanovic’s famous ‘elephant graph’ was able to pinpoint the precise percentiles in the global income distribution that were the biggest non-winners from our increasingly globalized economies. Policies were not in place to protect the losers of globalization - a political realization that arrived all too late for meaningful response.

Football fans have lived through a microcosm of these issues. Balancing priorities between club and national teams is an ongoing debate. In Europe, immigration has led to the composition of national teams becoming more ethnically diverse - a fact many in Switzerland were quick to highlight after the country voted to limit immigration. While the influx of foreign players has increased the quality of European leagues, it may be at the expense of the national good. One analysis showed that, at the last European championships, just 37% of players played in their domestic leagues - and 25% of players were contracted to English clubs.

Praying for victory

There’s a well-known joke amongst Chinese football fans: a man dies and goes to heaven, and, on meeting God, he’s offered one wish. Unfortunately, the man asks for something unattainable, even for God, so he’s granted a second wish. The man responds, “I wish that China will win the World Cup”. Pausing for a second, God replies: “Tell me your other wish again?”

But as the global centres of power move east, and China continues to globalize, its footballing success may no longer be in the hands of the gods.